The Diary Samuel Pepys (love books to read .TXT) 📖

deliver him into their hands should he ever set foot in their territory. This warning probably saved Charles’s liberty. —⁠M. B. ↩

This is the secret of Cornelius van Drebbel (1572⁠–⁠1634), which is referred to again by Pepys on November 11th, 1663. Johannes Siberius Kuffler was originally a dyer at Leyden, who married Drebbel’s daughter. In the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1661⁠–⁠62 (p. 327), is the following entry: “Request of Johannes Siberius Kuffler and Jacob Drebble for a trial of their father Cornelius Drebble’s secret of sinking or destroying ships in a moment; and if it succeed, for a reward of £10,000. The secret was left them by will, to preserve for the English crown before any other state.” Cornelius van Drebbel settled in London, where he died. James I took some interest in him, and is said to have interfered when he was in prison in Austria and in danger of execution. ↩

Waterfowl appear to have been kept in St. James’s Park from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but the ponds were replenished after the Restoration. ↩

A “pink” was a form of vessel now obsolete, and had a very narrow stern. The Blackmoor was a sixth-rate of twelve guns, built at Chatham by Captain Tayler in 1656 (Archæologia, xlviii 174). ↩

See ante, note 160. ↩

It passed the House of Lords on April 9th. ↩

He was one of the commissioners sent to Breda to desire Charles II to return to England immediately, when he was knighted. He was afterwards created a baronet. ↩

One of these letters was probably from John Creed. Mr. S. J. Davey, of 47, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, in 1889 had in his possession nine long letters from Creed to Pepys. In the first of these, dated from Lisbon, March, 1662, Creed wrote: “My Lord Embassador doth all he can to hasten the Queen’s Majestie’s embarquement, there being reasons enough against suffering any unnecessary delay.” There appear to have been considerable delays in the arrangements for the following declaration of Charles II was dated June 22nd, 1661: “Charles R. Whereas his Maj. is resolved to declare, under his Royal hand and seale, the most illustrious Lady Infanta of Portugall to be his lawful wife, before the Treaty shall be signed by the King of Portugall; which is to be done only for the better expediting the marriage, without sending to Rome for a dispensation, which the laws of Portugall would require if the said most Illustrious Infanta were to be betrothed in that Kingdome,” etc. ↩

The following quotation in illustration of this passage is suggested in the Athenæum:⁠—“Master Field, the player, riding up Fleet Street a great pace, a gentleman called him and asked him what play was played that day? He (being angry to be stayed upon so frivolous a demand) answered that he might see what play was to be played upon every post. I cry you mercy (said the gentleman), I took you for a post you rode so fast.” —⁠Taylor the Water-Poet ↩

The Bear at the Bridge Foot on the west side of High Street, Southwark. ↩

The New Exchange in the Strand, See ante, note 608 and note 700. ↩

John Graunt, born in Birchin Lane, London, April 24th, 1620, bound apprentice to a haberdasher. He obtained for his friend Petty the professorship of music at Gresham College. He was captain of train-bands for several years. He was bred a Puritan, but turned Socinian, and lastly became a Roman Catholic. F.R.S., February, 1661⁠–⁠62. He was recommended by the king, and Dr. Sprat writes, in his History of the Royal Society:⁠—

“In whose election it was so farr from being a prejudice that he was a shopkeeper of London, that his Majesty gave this particular charge to his Society, that if they found any more such tradesmen, they should be sure to admit them all, without any more ado.”

He published his Natural and Political Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality in 1662, and this book, which laid the foundation of the science of statistics, went through several editions during his lifetime. Afterwards it was edited and improved by Sir William Petty, who sometimes spoke of it as his own, which gave rise to Burnet’s erroneous statement that he “published his Observations on the Bills of Mortality in the name of one Grant, a Papist.” Graunt died at his house in Birchin Lane, April 18th, 1674. ↩

Joyce Norton. See note 88. ↩

Tansy (tanacetum), a herb from which puddings were made. Hence any pudding of the kind. Selden (Table Talk) says: “Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs.” See in Wordsworth’s University Life in the Eighteenth Century recipes for “an apple tansey,” “a bean tansey,” and “a gooseberry tansey.” —⁠M. B. ↩

The Guernsey (previously the Basing) was a fifth-rate of twenty-two guns, built at Walderwick in 1654 by Jonas Shish (Archæologia, xlviii 174). The name of the place should probably be Walberswick, on the Suffolk coast. ↩

This does not accord with the certificate which Dr. Milles wrote in 1681, where he says that Pepys was a constant communicant. ↩

Pepys had seen Fletcher’s play, The Nightwalker, or the Little Thief, at the Whitefriars Theatre, on April 2nd, 1661. ↩

The Spital sermons were originally preached in Spital Square, but they are now given at Christ Church, Newgate Street, on Easter Monday and Tuesday. ↩

Mary Saunderson, who married Thomas Betterton, December, 1662, one of Sir William Davenant’s